TRUST vs Part 107: Which Do You Need?
Updated August 2026 · Part 107 Quiz editorial team
Two things let you legally fly a drone in the United States, and they are not two levels of the same thing. TRUST is a free online safety test for people flying purely for fun. Part 107 is an FAA airman certificate for everyone else. They sit under different statutes, they carry different privileges, and the question that decides which one applies to you is not how big your drone is or how high you plan to fly. It is why you are flying.
Get that question wrong and you are not merely under-qualified — you are operating outside the rule you think you are inside. This chapter draws the line, then walks through what actually changes on each side of it.
The one-sentence answer
If the flight is purely for your own enjoyment, TRUST plus the recreational rules is enough. If the flight does anything else — advances a business, produces content you monetize, gathers information someone asked for, or is done as a favor with a commercial purpose behind it — you need a Part 107 remote pilot certificate.
Notice what is absent from that sentence: money. Nobody has to pay you for a flight to be non-recreational. The FAA looks at the purpose of the operation, not at whether an invoice was issued.
What TRUST actually is
TRUST stands for The Recreational UAS Safety Test. Congress created the recreational carve-out in 49 U.S.C. § 44809 — the Exception for Limited Recreational Operations — and TRUST is the knowledge requirement inside it.
Some concrete facts that surprise people:
- It is free. Every FAA-approved test administrator offers it at no cost. Anyone charging you for TRUST is charging you for a free test.
- You cannot fail it. Answer incorrectly and the session tells you the right answer and asks again. It is a teaching instrument dressed as a test, and finishing it takes most people about half an hour.
- It does not expire. There is no recurrent requirement.
- The FAA does not keep your certificate. Test administrators are prohibited from retaining your personal information, so nobody can re-issue a lost completion certificate. Lose the PDF and your only remedy is taking the test again. Save it somewhere you will still have it in three years.
- You must have it with you when you fly, and present it on request to the FAA or to law enforcement.
TRUST is not a certificate, a licence, or a rating. It grants no privileges of its own. It is a condition attached to an exception.
What the recreational exception costs you in privileges
The recreational route is easier to enter and considerably narrower once you are in it. Flying under § 44809 you must:
- fly strictly for recreational purposes;
- follow the safety guidelines of an FAA-recognized community-based organization;
- keep the aircraft within visual line of sight, or within the line of sight of a visual observer standing beside you;
- give way to and not interfere with any manned aircraft;
- get authorization before flying in controlled airspace, and stay at or below 400 feet in uncontrolled airspace;
- pass TRUST and carry proof of it;
- register the aircraft and display the registration number, and meet Remote ID.
The privilege that is missing from that list matters more than any item on it: there are no waivers. The waiver mechanism lives in 107.200, inside Part 107. A recreational flyer who needs to operate beyond visual line of sight, or over people outside the permitted categories, or above 400 feet, has exactly one path — get a Part 107 certificate and apply as a Part 107 operator. There is no recreational equivalent to appeal to.
What Part 107 gives you
A remote pilot certificate is an airman certificate issued under 14 CFR Part 107. Earning it means being at least 16, passing a 60-question knowledge test at a PSI testing centre for $175, clearing TSA vetting, and receiving the certificate through IACRA. Our step-by-step licensing guide covers the whole process, and the cost and pass-rate chapter covers what it takes to get through the exam.
What it buys you:
- Any purpose. Commercial, recreational, research, volunteer, whatever. A Part 107 flight does not have to justify its motive.
- Access to waivers. The eleven-odd rules listed in 107.205 can be set aside for a specific operation with an approved certificate of waiver.
- Operations over people and over moving vehicles under the subpart D categories, which the recreational exception does not offer at all.
- Night flight as a standard privilege, given the required training and anti-collision lighting.
- A recognised credential. Clients, insurers, and permitting offices ask for a certificate number. Nobody has ever asked to see a TRUST completion.
The obligations that come with it are real: recurrent training every 24 calendar months, accident reporting under 107.9, and the responsibility that attaches to being a remote pilot in command. But the certificate itself does not expire.
Side by side
| TRUST (§ 44809) | Part 107 | |
|---|---|---|
| Legal basis | 49 U.S.C. § 44809 exception | 14 CFR Part 107 |
| Purpose of flight | Recreation only | Any purpose |
| Cost | Free | $175 knowledge test |
| Minimum age | None specified | 16 |
| Can you fail? | No | Yes — 70% to pass |
| Renewal | Never expires | Certificate does not expire; recurrent training every 24 calendar months |
| Controlled airspace | Authorization required | Authorization required |
| Waivers available | No | Yes, under 107.205 |
| Over people / moving vehicles | Not permitted | Permitted under subpart D categories |
| Aircraft registration | $5 per person for all recreational aircraft; not required below 0.55 lb | $5 per aircraft, every aircraft regardless of weight |
| Proof carried in the field | TRUST completion certificate | Remote pilot certificate and photo ID |
The registration row is the one people trip over. A 249-gram drone flown for fun needs no registration; the same drone flown for any Part 107 operation does. Weight decides it on the recreational side, and purpose decides it on the commercial side.
The grey cases, resolved
Almost every real dispute is about the word "recreational." These are the ones that come up most:
Monetized video. Footage posted to a channel that earns advertising or sponsorship revenue is not recreational, even if you enjoyed making it. Enjoyment and business purpose are not mutually exclusive, and the FAA resolves the overlap in favour of Part 107.
Photographing your own house to sell it. The flight advances a commercial transaction. Part 107.
Inspecting your own roof. If it is your home and you are simply curious, that reads as recreational. If it is documentation for an insurance claim or for a contractor's bid, it is furthering a business purpose. Part 107.
A free favour for a friend's business. No money changes hands and it is still not recreational — the operation exists to serve a business. Part 107.
Volunteering for a charity. Do not assume the non-profit label makes a flight recreational. If the flight is work the organisation would otherwise have to hire out, fly it under Part 107.
Practising for a paid job. The practice session itself furthers the business. Part 107.
The pattern is consistent enough to compress into a test: if any person or organisation other than you gets a benefit from the flight, stop calling it recreational.
Choosing the rule set before you launch
A single flight operates under one rule set, chosen before takeoff, and you cannot reclassify it afterwards because a client turned up. If there is any chance the footage will be used commercially, launch the flight under Part 107 and stay inside those rules for its whole duration.
Holding a remote pilot certificate does not stop you flying for fun. It just means the decision no longer has to be made carefully every time — you already have the credential that covers every purpose, so the safest habit is to treat every flight as a Part 107 flight and never have to argue about which side of the line a particular Sunday afternoon fell on.
Test Yourself
The exam asks about this from one direction almost every time: given a described flight, does it fall under Part 107 or under the recreational exception? Drill the scenarios in our Regulations practice questions and Operations practice questions, or take a full Part 107 mock exam. The rest of our Study Guide covers the other FAA knowledge areas.
FAQ
Do I need TRUST if I already have a Part 107 certificate?
Not for Part 107 operations — your certificate covers flights of any purpose, recreational ones included. If you specifically choose to fly a given flight under the § 44809 recreational exception instead, you have to meet every requirement of that exception, TRUST included. In practice it is simpler to fly the flight under Part 107, which you are already entitled to do.
Can I fly commercially with just TRUST?
No. TRUST exists only inside the recreational exception and grants no commercial privileges. A commercial flight without a remote pilot certificate is an operation conducted outside any applicable rule, which is a considerably worse position than merely being unqualified.
I lost my TRUST completion certificate. Can the FAA send another?
No. Test administrators are barred from keeping your personal information, so no record exists to re-issue from. Take the test again — it is free and takes about half an hour. Save the new PDF to cloud storage rather than a phone.
Does a recreational flyer need Remote ID?
Yes. Remote ID follows registration, not the rule set: any drone that has to be registered has to meet Remote ID, whether it flies under Part 107 or under the recreational exception. The exception is flying inside an FAA-Recognized Identification Area. See our Remote ID chapter for the details, and always verify current rules at faa.gov.
Can a recreational flyer get a waiver to fly beyond visual line of sight?
No. Waivers are a Part 107 mechanism under 107.200, and there is no recreational counterpart. The only route to a waived operation is to hold a remote pilot certificate and apply as a Part 107 operator.